On how to become a Bollywood-star in Mumbai…

Heya guys!

We’ve been in Mumbai since last Saturday, and I have to say that this city is a lot less worse than I expected it to be – it’s reasonable clean (if you ignore the yellow dust cloud that you can see around the city if you go out on a boat) and not so terribly noisy after all for a city with some 16 millions inhabitants. However, as half of the population lives in slums, the difference between the rich and the poor becomes extremely visible. It is a city of contrasts, in any aspect…

The day we arrived we’ve been ‘casted’ right away by a ‘Bollywood agent’ while walking down Colaba courseway who asked us whether we wanted to be part of a Bollywood movie. We thought ‘why not?’ and the next morning were picked up by our ‘agent’ and brought to an outdoor studio at the other end of the city. We spent a good 10 hours at the set, most of which we were standing around in the heat, longing for some shadow, while waiting for instructions („go here!“ – „go there“ – „start walking“ ….). At one point, the people there dressed me up as a nun (what a perfect fit, haha), but I never actually got around to wear the costume during a shoot. Towards the end of the day, while waiting for our ride back to the city, a couple of Indians started talking to Maira and me, eventually resulting in a marriage proposal for me, which I guess was actually meant to be quite serious („you’re nice, he likes you, you are beautiful, he wants to marry you“). Luckily, that guy’s phone rang which gave me an excuse to quickly turn around, walk away and talk to somebody else… Besides that, our ‘agent’ called several people on the set, who handed over their phones to me, in order to convince me to do some ‘voice doubling’ the next day, and/or to come out to a nightclub with him and his friends that night, because „you seem really nice“…

So, eventually, after one day of tasting Bollywood, I decided not to become a Bollywood star (I surely had enough starting points… haha), but rather to stick with my planned career. All the heat, the admirers, the stress, no, that’s not for me…

The one really good thing that came out of this Bollywood day was the acquaintace of some Swedish people, two of whom we are currently sharing a room with. They are really nice, and we spent a lot of time together in the last couple of days eating some western food, visiting some airconditioned shopping malls and watching a Hollywood film – these things somehow make you feel good once in a while, they remind you of home… Hach. We also went on a trip to Elephanta Island with them yesterday, where we visited some old Hindu caves.

Besides that, we’ve been trying to figure out where to next go from here, there are so many options… We kind of longed for a few days at the beach in Goa again (it’s getting increasingly hot up to a point at which the heat is quite hard to handle, especially in a city), but decided against it. We’ll go up to Udaipur, Rajastan tomorrow, and then to Agra and Delhi from where we’ll catch a flight to Nepal at the end of next week. I’ll be very sad to leave India, let me tell you!

So, I guess you’re updated now. I’ve uploaded a bunch of new pictures to my photo page, so make sure you check them out!

Take care folks, and I’d be delighted if you’d write me a couple of lines from your wintery lifes once in a while if you feel like it!

From Goa to Hampi

Geeze, so much has happened since my last entry, so I’ll try to give a brief overview…

We’ve spent the remaining days in Goa with doing some paragliding around the cliffs and over the beaches  (that was amazing, you really just glide through the air, it’s so calm and peaceful and has something meditative about it…) and otherwise just relaxed on the beach. That was very relaxing indeed and we could have just stayed on…! But we had booked the night bus to Hampi for Saturday night, so we eventually left Arambol and spent the day in Old Goa (visiting some old churches) and Panjim, where we were lucky enough to see some Indian carnival action! One road has been closed off to make room for dozens of beautifully decorated wagons, loud music and wildly dancing Indians – what a splendid atmosphere to be in! There were even a few men dressed as women acting rather obscene, an unusual sight in India where public affection and sex in public is very uncommon, I loved it!!!

After that spectacle we hopped on the sleeper bus to Hampi, and that was quite an experience in itself: we booked  sleeper seats (somewhat of a ‘cave’ you can lie down in), and the bus was supposed to take a good 10 hours over night. Well, we finally arrived in Hampi after a good 16 hours, including a bit of sleep, several toilet stops, some mechanical works on the breaks, a fight between our driver and a truck driver over a broken mirror and some traffic jams… But hey, in India time is a circle, at least we arrived in good health. This, however, was to change shortly after we tasted some food on one of the numerous rooftop restaurants in Hampi. So besides a really nice sunset overlooking the vicinity of Hampi we’ve seen nothing of the place but the hotel room and – of course – its toilet for the first 48 hours… Grr. Oh well, after a lot of sleep and some pills from the local pharmacy I was feeling better and was lucky to make the acquaintance of two ‘Wannabe-Austrians’ from Ulm, Germany while eating some breakfast. They were so nice as to invite me along on their motorbikes, exploring the surroundings of Hampi. We spent two absolutely awesome days  visiting temples, watching the sun set and rise again and chilling in the shadow of immense rocks, temples  or restaurants, all of them coming with the most amazing views on these rocky, but yet fertile grounds and taking loads of ‘accented’ pictures… Unfortunately, Maira wasn’t feeling as good yet and thus didn’t accompany us all of the time, but with her I went up the hill next to Hampi one night at 1 a.m., and I can hardly find any words for what greeted us up there; it was just the most peaceful place, with the numerous parts of old temples wither glowing black against the spotless sky filled with stars, or being enlightened in a slight blue from the lights of the village. We spent 3 hours up there, talking about anything and nothing, feeling peaceful, happy, filled with the pure power of life. This was one of the most powerful places I’ve visited so far in my life, I was totally amazed and touched by it!

So here I am now, spending my last few hours in Hampi, still feeling tired from the lack of sleep in the last two days, but very much alive, smiling, happy and healthy – well, apart from a nicely bruised butt from sitting in the back of motorbikes stumbling across Indian roads  (thanks for that you two… :* ) Tonight, we’ll take another sleeper bus up to busy Mumbai, could there be a bigger contrast to the peacefulness of this place?! Well, here we go, that’s the diversity of India, and that’s how I love it!

Speak soon!

Bathing in sweat on a train and taking it easy on the beach

Alright folks, let’s play a game called „guess where I am at the moment“: we started the day with a delicious breakfast at a beach cafe (they even had proper cappuccino, wow) and spent most of the day lying at the beach with the sun shining on a cloudless blue sky (32 degrees), having a dip into the sea once in a while and being served freshly squeezed fruit juice while listening to some Beatles meadley… Besides that we’ve been shopping a bit at one of the numerous cloth stands along the one single road here and the beach front AND we’ve booked some tandem paragliding action for tomorrow (I can’t wait!!!).  So, any guesses? Mhmmmmmm? Yes, we’re in Goa! In a little village called Arambol that’s been taken over by a handful of European Hippies some 20 years ago and which has so far not been discovered by the big tourism industry. Quite a few Hippies of every age have come over to live here, and bring with them good food and a relaxed atmosphere. Being here is a little like escaping the real India and taking a dive into another world which compares to nothing I’ve seen so far. But then that’s quite a typical thing for India as well I guess. Oh well, we’re just enjoying a bit of a break from all the hectic and noise of the India outside, trying to regain our strength and power again that’s been robbed a bit too often by the heat and the stomach problems of the last weeks…

We spent most of the last week in Kochi/ Fort Cochin, one of them I’ve spent in bed being sick again. I suppose it was just the heat that I couldn’t really cope with (even if you took three showers a day you were still covered in sweat in no time again, feeling absolutely gross), together with some food my stomach didn’t feel like digesting… However, the homeopathic doctor from next door was able to help me very quickly, what a blessing! So I was able to have a closer look at the town and its Jewish quarters, and to get frustrated trying to buy a train ticket up to Goa. That’s so typical for India: even those things that do not appear to be complicated turn out to be a real pain – like buying a train ticket. We first had to take the ferry to Ernakulam, then a rickshaw to the train station in order to stand in three different queues at which ends three different guys told us three different things – in the end we believed the station supervisor and went for his proposed option. Unfortunately, this train wasn’t until three days later, so we were just a tiny bit annoyed as we got up at 6 a.m. that morning in order to be the first ones at the ticket office. That actually wouldn’t have been too bad, but as the guy from our homestay took us out to a night club the night before, we’ve only had about 3 hours of sleep and were a bit knackered… But it was worth it, seeing the Indians dance and be absolutely ‘cool’ to European club music, haha. However, I have to admit that the Indian guys are just so annoying – they tried to touch and grab me all the time, even when I was just sitting on a couch in the corner they sat down a touch too close next to me, touching my arms, my belly, wanting me to go outside with them. But even if I was telling them to stop and go away, they still returned and wouldn’t leave me alone. As you can imagine, I was quite happy that we met two Swedish guys who enjoyed playing my personal bodyguards…

Anyhow, we somehow made it to spend the additional days in Kochi without being too bored, and went to Ernakulam the last day. With our luggage locked at the train station we managed it to go to the cinema while waiting for our train to depart (at 22:45). We watched a bollywood film called „Billo – The Barber“ which unfortunately was in Hindi with no subtitles, so we didn’t quite get the whole plot. But that didn’t really matter, it was fun enough to hear the girls in the audience scream as their favourite actor came on screen, and to see those dancing and singing scenes which reminded me of quite bad music videos on MTV and which suddenly came up in the middle of the film without any warning… But I suppose that’s just a must in every Bollywood film, and if you ever get the chance to watch one, do so! Nothing reflects the crazyness and chaos of the Indians better than a proper Bollywood movie!!!

So after this enjoyment we boarded the train to Goa – 15 hours in a sleeper department, including loads of mosquitos, people and noise all around. No, it was actually better than I imagined, I even managed to get a couple of hours sleep until the first guys came walking along the trains with their huge metal buckets yelling „Chai, Chai“ and „Coffee“ at 5 a.m.. So I enjoyed a couple of those terrible sweet drinks (I guess it’s the mixture of caffeine and sugar that really wakes you up), and spent the remaining  hours with looking out the window. These views are one of the beauties of travelling by train in India: watching rice fields and other plantages, people, villages, palm trees, churches, temples, rivers and seas (…) pass by combined with a fresh breeze that comes in through the windows. That morning the lack of sleep has been awarded by being able to watch the sun rise, what a stunning thing to watch! So, then, we approached Madgoan/ Goa in the early afternoon and after another 3 hot hours of bus ride in three different buses (one of which had some engine problems so we stopped every few hundred meters and one of the poor guys had to manually start the engine again), we finally arrived at Arambol. We quickly found a room and I think I’ve never in my life enjoyed taking a shower as much…! However, any help is lost for the t-shirt I’ve been wearing those two days…

We’ll be staying in Goa until Saturday when we’ll take an overnight bus inland to ancient Hampi (we learnt from the last time and booked early… ). A couple of days taking it easy is nice and very much needed, but some people stay here a few months, I guess that would be too boring for me. Besides, I haven’t come to a country like India to stay at the beach the whole time, but rather want to see some of the variety this country is made of!

So, I guess that’s all the news for the moment. I tried to upload some of the numerous pics I took, but unfortunately my battery gave up, so you’ll have to be patient a couple more days… I hope you’re all good and don’t get buried in snow. I’m thinking of you guys while taking it easy on the beach! – What a life!

Cruising the Keralan backwaters and visiting an ashram

Heya guys! It’s me again!

After we’ve spent a little longer than a week in Kumily, Western Ghats, we finally managed to take the bus to Kottayam (including some breath-taking overtaking close to very steep mountain edges), we took a boat from Kottayam to Alleppey along the Keralan backwaters (a huge labyrinth of rivers, lakes and lagunes…). That was really scenic, as you can see on the pics of my picture page…

After two nights in Alleppey (where Maira finally got rid of her stomach problems thanks to some antibiotics), we decided to pay Amma’s ashram a visit. Amma is a female guru, praising unconditional love as the ultimate weapon for a better society, so she hugs people in order to give them strength and guide them – sometimes as many as 5000 a day! Her ashram is in the middle of the backwaters, and has – due to its popularity – grown a lot within the last years; now there are numerous pink high storey buildings and a temple. Every night she sings with her fellows, and there are pictures of her everywhere. You can even buy little Amma dolls and rings with her face on it… Crazy! We stayed in a room with two American girls who spend most of their time meditating, we just wondered how as there were people everywhere and with it, a lot of noise – not a single bit of solitude. Oh well, we got sick pretty quickly by this hype for a god-like persons, it was almost a bit scary to see so many people following the words of a single person – even though she praises love and launched many social projects in the last years…

So we left her ashram this morning, and took the train to Kochi (Fort Cochin), where we are now. It’s a nice city, quite western due to the influences of the Portugese in former centuries (the first Christian church on Indian grounds was erected here some 400 years ago…). There is a nice promenade at the seafront, and many small shops with cloth, clothes and jewellery (…). We’re planning to stay here for a couple of days and then head north towards Goa.

Alright, that’s it for the moment. Hope you are all doing well, and that the long time between Christmas and the beginning of spring is not getting toooooo long for you. Myself, I can only say that any thoughts of winter or being bored are far, far away, I’m enjoying the summer (it’s a bit too hot once in a while) and the freedom I have here!

Take care!!!

From the city into the jungle…

Heya!

We are currently in a little town called Kumily, Kerala, right at the border to Tamil Nadu. It took about 4 1/2 hours by bus to get here from Madurai, but the journey was absolutely worth it: this place is very peaceful, right in the middle of a wood in the mountains, and the honks of the autorickshaws are only audible once in a while…

We spent the last days with having an ayurvedic massage (you get covered in warm oil from head to toe and after that put into a little wooden steam box with your head stuck out through a little hole on top, in which you start sweatin…), or doing a boat tour along the lake of the Puniyar Wildlife Reserve. The latter, however, was rather boring, more like a coffee cruise for the elderly, but at least we saw some wild animals (bisons…).

One day we hired a local guide and a driver to take us out to some local villages and plantages in the vicinity. That was a really interesting 4-hour trip, where we visited many different fields and plantages (beans, bananas, lady fingers, grapes, sugar cane, rice, coconut…) and talked to the people working there. They were all really curious and very friendly and wanted to share their food and stories with us. The communication was rather hard though, as only possible through the use of arms and legs… But still, it was nice having a chai in a little place in the middle of some village people, who were all staring at the TV in the corner of the room (which was made of palm leaves by the way), possibly one of the few TVs in the village. Most houses/ sheds didn’t have running water nor eletricity, but the people seemed happy nonetheless. Sometimes I think they seem a lot happier than the people in hectic cities back home…

Today, we were actually planning to take another bus to Alleppey, to have a couple of days cruising the Keralan backwaters (a labyrinth of small rivers and lakes in the woods), but unfortunately my travel companion Maira has caught something and is now the one being bound to bed and toilet. I hope she gets better soon, I and also the women of the house we are staying at are doing our best to help her regain her strength and powers! Besides that I use the time being very lazy, listening to music, reading some books (I just finished ‘Zusammen ist man weniger allein“ by Anna Gavalda, very nice!!!) or enjoying some yummy ‘idly’ (something that’s made out of rice flour and steamed over hot water) with fresh fruit marmelade… Mhm, as you can see, I am doing really good and enjoy every single minute of my time here!

Speak soon!

Madurai and beyond

Namaste!

The last three days we spent in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. We took the train from Trivandrum and safely arrived in Madurai after 7 hours. I like Indian trains, they go rather slow (40-60km/h), but the people are a lot more relaxed than in Europe. They sit with their feet hanging out of the open train doors, and jump off the train before it has even come to a stop. At every train station, a few people coming in wanting to sell you terribly sweet chai or coffee or snacks. A young family with a 6-day old baby was sitting on the bench opposite of us, curiously looking at us and sharing some of their meals with us. At one point, the mother asked us whether Maira and I are the two wifes of David (an Irish guy who was travelling with us) – that seemed perfectly normal to her… Tsts. Oh well, at 11 P.M. we finally arrived in Madurai, which train station was filled with people lying or sitting on the floor, most of them sleeping while waiting for their next train.

The next two days we spent exploring the city. Although Madurai also has more than a million inhabitants, it is a lot calmer and less dusty in comparison to Trivandrum. That, of course, doesn’t mean that it’s actually calm in the city, haha, no! There are still loads of honking rickshaws, motorbikes and buses everywhere… Madurai has a huge hindu temple in the middle, which unfortunately has been under renovation when we were there so we could only guess all the multi-coloured figures underneath the construction shelter, but the temple was still very nice – a real place of silence in the midst of the city. I particularly liked the hindu tradition that you are only allowed to go into a temple being barefoot, it really does give you a different feeling… Other things we did in Madurai included going to a tailor who made us some clothes, buying nice earrings, sleeeeeeeeeping (this heat makes you really tired all the time), having our future predicted by a bird amongst others. Oh, and Maira killed her first cockroach, I almost forgot to mention that…

Today, we went on a 4 hour bus journey from Madurai to Kumily, which is a little town in the mountains close to the Perinyar Wildlife Reserve. It’s really a relief to escape the big city again, and in the next days we plan on going on a little boat and a hiking trip and do some wildlife spotting. Let’s see how we like that.

Hope you’re all good, I managed to upload a load of pictures today, so check them out! Speak soon!

On my way to Madurai…

Heya!

We’ve spent a couple more days in Kovalam than actually planned, not because that tourist town is particular nice, but because all the spicy food, and the heat and the sun have caused me to be spend a whole night on the loo, yay, that was fun! My stomach has been a bit funny the following days, so we decided to keep it easy and just rest a bit longer. We didn’t do much else than sitting in cafes, reading books and talking about anything and nothing. Besides, our little everyday problems included a misplacement of passports or being hassled by Indian people to buy mangos, coconut oil or whatever else. So it’s been very easy living…

At the moment, I am in Trivandrum waiting for the train to Madurai, finally! I can’t wait to see more of this country!

Hope you are all well and healthy wherever you are!

Culture shock in India

Geeze, three days in India and I am already feeling totally exhausted as well as amazed by everything that’s going on around me…

We’ve been staying in a little tourist village called Kovalum for the last three days, where we mainly sat in a cafe called ‘Beatles’ drinking fresh juices or eating delicious food (the food, oh my god, it’s absolutely amazing out here – the vegetarians heaven, hehe)… It was good to have the first two days for relaxation, we needed some time to get used to this country and its way of life. Kovalum has two beaches, around which numerous hotels and shops have been built in the last decades. There are quite a few western tourists here, mixed with Indians trying to sell all kinds of stuff to you (cloth and clothes, jewellery, drums, fresh fruits, food etc.): „Madam, come in and see, pleeeeeaaase…“ – „Madam, most cheapest here, I promise“… It’s really hard to decide on how to behave towards people that don’t stop harrassing you, be it beggars, sellers or just nosy people. And how do you behave if you get stared at all the time, quite shamelessly, as they don’t even look away when you look back. I’ve discovered that sunglasses help A LOT – they kind of build up a good distance.

Today, we finally took the bus to Trivandrum and spend the day walking around. It’s been terribly hot, and the streets were covered with red dust, there were cars, motorbikes and rickshaws everywhere, and of course plenty of walking people as well. The worst thing about this was the level of noise: engines, never stopping buzzers (everybody seems to constantly need to remind everybody else that ‘here I come’), people screaming, music. All of that gave me a pleasant headache after a few hours, and I started to wonder how people can actually live in a city like that… Oh well, I hope that time will help me getting used to it very quickly, latest tomorrow I’ll have to find a way to handle it anyway, as we’ll stay in Trivandrum for a night before heading out to Madurai on Sunday. We’ve already discovered today that buying a train ticket is not as easy at it may seem…

From what I’ve seen so far, India is a country full of contrasts: there is so much poverty and rubbish everywhere, but people are still quite polite and seem to be happy. And there is a lot of wealth as well, huge houses are being build right next to shabby huts. There are smells everywhere – good and bad ones… And all the colours everywhere (houses, clothes, advertising banners, buses, people, fruits…), totally amazing! I’m more than excited to see and experience more of this country, but for now I’m just looking forward to have a yummy and relaxed dinner in one of the nice vegetarian food places around here…

I’ve uploaded a couple of pictures to my photo page, but the internet connection is very slow, so more will follow some other time. Take care folks!

Arrived in India!

Heya folks!

I just wanted to let you know that both Maira and I have safely landed in India and are currently in a town called Kovalum, close to Trivandrum. It took us some effort to get any kind of orientation and find our ways around the busy Indian streets, but we finally made it to our hostel… Since then we’ve enjoyed the afternoon and the sunset in a little cafe at the beach drinking pineapple juice and lassi, and chatting about this and that. Tomorrow we’ll head off to explore the city of Trivandrum…

So far I can say that India is nothing what I’ve expected, it’s hard to describe really. I hope to be able to give you a much better description in a couple of days time… Until then, take care and fare well!

Bye Maldives, hi India!

Heya guys!

The two weeks here in the Maldives have gone by very quickly, unbelievable! It’s been a very nice time – thanks to Sinan and his friends! From a day at a safari yacht to a fishing trip and 3 1/2 days at a resort island (one of Sinans friends was able to negotiate a cheaper price), everything has been included! I’m really thankful to all the people here, I’ve made some new friends, and I’m confident that the Maldives will see me again… For pictures check out my photo page…

Tomorrow in the morning, I’ll be boarding the plane to Trivandrum, India, where I’ll meet up with Maira. I’m very excited and anxious about the coming weeks and months!!!!

I’ll keep you updated, until then, take care!